Tag: self-care

Unmoored

From what I am hearing from people from every which direction, it seems we are all bobbing up and down in a sort of aftershock. It’s like the worst of the storm has passed and as our overtaxed survival instincts go into hiatus, we find ourselves in the midst of the realization that our ship has sunk and we now find ourselves at the mercy of the cold, turbulent water with very little energy or wherewithal to fight the undertoe. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but I think it is better to speak it out loud, give it the name and recognition that it deserves. The trauma is real. To not acknowledge it is to deny gratitude to our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits for all of the overtime they have been putting in. 

I, like everyone else that I have heard from, am feeling it. Luckily, I have been super fortunate to have been receiving a ton of reinforcement that validates my experience. Our systems have been overtaxed and it is going to take time for us to recover. In the meantime, be gentle with yourself. Take it slow. Lower your expectations and demands. Be realistic. Nurture, nurture, nurture. Sleep more. Repeat. 

If you haven’t been getting these sorts of reflections on where we are in this moment, please seek out such reflections. Step one is just being aware. This morning Shannon and I listened to Krista Tippet’s On Being podcast interviewing clinical psychologist Christine Runyan. It’s helpful. It puts things in perspective. It reminds us of our very real humanity which begs our attention. Here is the link:

https://onbeing.org/programs/christine-runyan-whats-happening-in-our-nervous-systems/

Or here is another one addressing similar issues by Brene Brown:

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-on-the-queens-gambit-revisiting-ffts-and-resting-our-tired-brains/

That said, I have to admit to not being in great writing shape these days. But I’m not fighting it. I’ll simply be here when and as I can and trust that the tides will change. 

In the meantime, I have to say that this bobbing up and down with the current has proven to be interesting these past few weeks. It’s like this. It’s like knowing that I used to be on this great ship that has been smashed to smithereens and the mission/grand adventure that I was on right along with it. It’s in the past and it isn’t coming back. But just as I come to terms with this idea, some remnant of the ship comes floating by. It’s not just wreckage either. It is, rather, somehow in and of itself whole. Something different than it used to be perhaps, but also still a projection of that old thing into the present and moving on into the future. 

What I am saying is that things change, yes. Sometimes they change catastrophically. However, there is also a wholeness between past, present, and future that can never be undone. Everything that is has always been there and will be there all along. Even though we only perceive a minuscule portion of the All That Is, if you will, in any particular moment doesn’t mean that it isn’t there just the same. But let me give you some examples.

When Shannon and I left Houston and moved to Vermont, it was in no small part out of frustration. We felt we had been banging our heads against a wall that was never going to budge for way too long. It was time to let it be. In truth, we had been making significant progress on that wall, but it is difficult to see that when your nose is right up against it and your head and heart hurt.

One such endeavor was The Fly Flat, the multi-award winning project that my last Race to Zero competition team at Prairie View A&M University designed. We had pushed hard to move that project into PVAMU’s first full fledged design-build project. We had laid all of the groundwork, ensured that the facility in which we would be constructing it was fully equipped to do so, secured community partners, pedaled the project to countless national partners for technical and financial support, etc. But when push came to shove, the university wasn’t ready to take it on and wouldn’t be any time in the foreseeable future. It was heartbreaking. Sometimes the best thing to do in these cases is to just walk away. So we did. We let go. 

No sooner had we moved to Vermont, than the City of Houston got in touch with me wanting to  build the dang thing! A year and a half of red tape and in the midst of a pandemic, the project was finally given the green light. I just issued the construction documents a week ago. It’s not out of the gates yet as what we are attempting to do is not so simple. We are attempting to change the course of affordable housing in Houston. There is a ton more work to be done to try to birth it into reality. That said, I do understand that no matter where it goes from here, it has and will have impact in ways that we may never fully understand. 

Here’s another example. I have mentioned before the Living Building Challenge Studio at The Monarch School. This was the first project to be designed to achieve the Living Building Challenge in Texas. I (Architend) designed it, Shannon (Tend Building) built it, and our good friend Amanda (GreeNexus) handled the LBC certification process. We poured everything we had into making that project a reality- time, sweat, money, persistence, and on and on. Then the school went through a major life-altering administrative transition and what started as an impossible dream drifted back into impossibility. It was heartbreaking. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is to walk away. So we did. We let it go.

A few years ago The Monarch School contacted me to see if they could resurrect the LBC certification. I directed them to Amanda and left them in her good hands. I, myself, remained guarded about it. I wasn’t about to get my hopes up just to be crushed again. So I didn’t think about it. On the very same day that I was issuing the drawings for Fly Flat, Amanda texted. She had just been notified that the LBC Studio had achieved LBC Petal Certification. Even though not the full certification that the building is capable of, this is a massively, huge deal. Redemption. Finally. Elation. Finally. Ten years later, to be exact. 

It is so hard sometimes to deal with grief head on. It’s just too much. Life goes on and we have to find ways to keep playing along. It’s not that I have given up on anything that lies within my vision. I haven’t. I have faithfully kept plugging away at it in any and every way that life makes available to me. I do trust that even when a particular dream doesn’t seem to materialize, it does ultimately come back around in some way that will perhaps be recognizable, perhaps not. I could site countless examples from hockey to architecture to urban planning to regenerative design to personal relations. Every bit of it is still swirling around in this vast ocean, rising and falling just like me. There is something to the letting go, to being unmoored. And when some piece of your life goes floating by, ah… the joy. 

This Place

It’s all so much easier when we are on vacation. Right??? I think maybe because our week in Big Bend was so in tune, this week by contrast felt like a disaster. It wasn’t, but that sure didn’t keep me from feeling like it was. The truth is that it was a mixed bag, just like just about every other week in life. There was some not so fun stuff, some o.k. stuff, some comical stuff, some infuriating stuff, some good stuff, and even some great stuff. Yet my state of being was brutal regardless of any of it. My best guess is that I finally crashed into the full realization that this phase of my life is ending. We are moving on. While that is super exciting, there is also a mourning that will have to take place… which I have been avoiding.

But with spring break having come and gone, the mad dash is now on. We are down to two months. There is not only an overwhelming amount of work and details that we need to take care of, there is also all of the emotions that are going to express themselves by hook or by crook. I found myself this week not even being able to deal with my self. So I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, got quiet, did a lot of self care (new skill!), and didn’t give myself a hard time about anything. Basically, I just gave myself space to be a mess. Internally anyway. Nobody who encountered me this week would have known I was a mess, with the sole exception of Shannon. And even at that, I tend to want to go through these moments alone and this week was no exception. I just need to sit with myself.

So let’s see, what can I tell you after a week of sitting with myself? The first thing I can say for sure is that my state of being definitely determines how I experience life. For example, on Monday something that should have been cause for joy and celebration barely moved me at all. As the week wore on this remained true although by simply being a witness to the phenomenon, I was at least able to register the good stuff like positive feedback, music that moves me, and a beautiful day. I have to say that the moment that began to break the ice came unexpectedly mid week. I had forgotten that a few of my professional colleagues were coming to campus for a Women in Architecture event that I was also supposed to take part in. I was reminded of the fact by the student organizer a half hour before the event was set to start.

It was a speed meeting sort of thing for our female students to meet as many female architects as possible- which is awesome. The plan in my head prior to this realization was to get the heck out of dodge as soon as studio was over and go home for some self care. I was dealing with the change in plan o.k., even though it required me to ignore the fact that I was not feeling well physically. As I headed to the event, two of my colleagues were already there and the other arrived shortly afterward. Now here is the important thing to know about this- these aren’t just three colleagues, they are actually three very close friends. One of them was my classmate at Princeton and my roommate during grad school. Two others have been our partners in crime on the green scene in Houston for many years, and our relationships transcended professional bounds a long time ago. All three are people who know me very well and have supported me in all ways. I didn’t let on to them that I was a mess either. We just chatted as normal prior to the start of the event. Then it turned out that the event didn’t need me because we had gotten enough outside architects to talk to our students- which was great. Without a single moment of hesitation, I decided to head home for that self care. I said my goodbyes to each of them and was off.

It wasn’t until I was driving away that I realized that just seeing the three of them had made a difference. A pang of sadness hit me that I wouldn’t be hanging out with them, catching up, definitely laughing, and maybe even going to a spontaneous dinner later. Of course the pang was intensified by the realization that we will soon live 2,000 miles away and doing such things are suddenly not quite so easy. But you know what? I just let it be. The truth was, I needed the self care. And instead of being sad about it, I was happy just for the opportunity to unexpectedly be in their presence even if for only a moment. Just that one moment made me realize that I am in no way alone in the world. In fact, I am surrounded by an abundance of people who love me, even when they may not be in my presence or in my awareness. It also brought to my attention that we will need to make space to spend time with friends before we go! That hadn’t even registered on our massive to do list yet.

Thank God the end of the week has been beautiful here, because you know something else- beautiful days just help. The Universe was so kind to me that It actually locked me out of my classroom yesterday, forcing me to take my class outside. How awesome is that?! I always loved it when a professor would take us outside on a perfect spring day. It was just what the doctor ordered. As for today, I mixed a little self care with some of that to do list. I don’t teach on Fridays, but instead use them to catch up on my professional work. I had an unusual opening in my schedule this week though, so I decided I was going to dive into our yard work and enjoy the beautiful weather in the process. We have put a ton of tender loving care (aka work) into this house, yard included. But not having spent summers here for the past five years, it had gone almost completely wild (seriously) and we have been slowly working to tame it.

This is another one of those emotional goodbye moments for me, because our yard was our big permaculture project of nine years ago. We transformed the front yard into organic shaped beds to grow our veggies, installed a drip irrigation system, and planted numerous fruit trees: satsuma, meyer lemon, star fruit, fig, papaya (long gone), and another that hasn’t produced anything so I can’t even remember what it is. The above photo is what it looked like right after we finished the initial install. The back yard has a spiral herb garden, a banana grove, peach trees, and a grapefruit tree. One of the peach trees is right outside of our kitchen window and is always gorgeous. We are hoping the peaches make it in time for us to enjoy them one more time. The rest of the back yard is xeriscaped with rocks. Shannon built the coolest trellis structures, one to support vines right outside our master bath, and the other to provide cover over the deck off of the master bedroom, which I imagine one day might support grape vines. It is all still a work in progress as we are moving toward at least somewhat completing the vision.

What I hope is that the future owners of this home thoroughly enjoy all of the love that we have put into it. I hope they love taking baths surrounded by vines outside the picture windows. I hope they love their feet being massaged by the rocks that form the floor of our walk in shower. I hope the kitchen- cabinetry, finishes, appliances and all- enriches their everyday lives. I hope they love the wood floors throughout, especially since we had to replace them twice! I certainly hope they appreciate their lower energy bills thanks to the high performance systems we have installed, not to mention me making Shannon crawl on her knees for days as she sealed the sill plate to the foundation. She seriously thought I was nuts… at the time. I would love for the new owners to continue using the meditation room as such, but that is too much to ask. Putting as much as we have into this house was never the smart thing to do. Any financial advisor would have strongly discouraged what we have done. But I just can’t. I can’t be with a place and not do everything within my creative powers to make it the best place it can be. If we aren’t here to make the world a more beautiful place, then what on earth are we doing???

I knew when we started all of this work that this day would come. I actually thought it would come sooner than it did. For me, it was an act of love from the get go. I knew that as much as we were doing it all for us, we were doing it for the next family that will live here. This house has seen its share of troubles. It has not just been an act of physically transforming it, but also energetically transforming it. The latter has been harder. I would swear that the three (yes 3), internal flooding incidents that this house has had in the past 12 years were it doing my crying for me. So as you might imagine by now, I have regarded the transformation of my self to be one with that of my house. That we will be passing this on a happy place is testament to what is possible and what is still yet to come. There is a whole world out there. But we will only ever transform it one place, one heart, at a time.